Fall of Summer
by VINBYL
Summary: For Len, it doesn't help being the love interest of Miss Popular-in-my-pants – Hatsune Miku – when he'd rather be left alone and not hindered by the ever-growing infatuation for Miku's almost-servant slash personal minion, Kagamine Rin. LenxRin. (rated T for safety.)


**disclaimer: I don't own Vocaloid. or Hello Kitty. /sympathises with everyone else who doesn't either  
****but I own the plot... and the personalities... and the writing. oh, the terrible writing /wipes tears dramatically**

* * *

**Fall of Summer**

* * *

One

The gentle rocking of the train cart is lulling. But the claustrophobic crowd inside, not so much.

Len stands quietly, one hand clutching the handle, the other clasping his bag strap. He's peeved. There's too many people – _too many_ – and he feels like he has little breathing space.

Ugh, and school. He doesn't want to go to school.

Yeah, he could go wag it or whatever, but that lecture from his mother, Lily, this morning sure made him think otherwise. So, today, he's wearing his stupid, new and crispy uniform, dreading the arrival at his stupid, new school, expecting the worse for the stupid, new day ahead of him. Goddammit – why did his Mum have to decide _now _of all times to move?

He nearly rolls his eyes at the thought of it. Sometimes, he wonders what goes on in that brain of hers. Women – he doesn't get them. _At all_.

Eventually, the train pulls up at the dreaded destination, and he rolls onto the platform with the other students he'll soon be joining with a heavy cloud of trepidation hanging over his shoulders. Several students turn their head, as if to inspect him, knowing he's a newbie.

Oh god, he _is_ a newbie. The colour of his freaking tie is about ten billion times brighter than theirs. How the heck is he going to blend in when there's this gigantic arrow pointing to his head going, 'New uniform – new student'?

He drags his feet almost pathetically to the front office, where apparently, he's supposed to sign in or something (not that he cares, though). While in the line-up to talk to the office receptionist, he pulls out the sheet he's theoretically to show to her. Oh, and the map, too, because that'll probably be slightly helpful for the rest of the day.

"Hi," the office lady says cheerfully, whilst typing something rapidly into the computer. "How can I help you?"

Len swallows, shoving the paper at her. "I'm new." is his lame introduction.

The woman takes his sheet and inspects it. "Oh, okay. Kagamine Len, is it?" she checks, in which Len gives a brief nod to, before she turns to the computer and starts typing away one again. "Your year coordinator will be here in a moment. Take a seat." she gestures with one perfectly manicured hand to the chairs by the window.

He skulks off and slumps down into the last of the open seats, near some kid with blue hair, graphitizing his canvas shoes jadedly and chewing on gum like a cow. Len ignores him and unfolds the map, to memorize the buildings and such. If there is to be anything he hates more, it's asking for directions – or just talking in general, anyway.

"New kid, huh?" a voice asks, and Len's head shoots up to see the graffiti-and-gum-boy still drawing all over his shoes. He stares for a few moments, until the boy looks up and raises an eyebrow. "Yes? No?"

Len clears his throat uncomfortably. "Uh, yeah,"

He grins and holds out a hand. "'name's Kaito. You?"

Len takes it slowly. "Len,"

"Nice, nice. Welcome to Vocaloid High." Kaito sounds sarcastic, so Len drops their handshake and just nods briefly, before looking back down at his map because he doesn't know what else to say. After a few moments of muteness, Kaito speaks again. "You don't speak much, do you?"

Len glances up again. "Mm,"

Kaito makes a sound between a snort and a chuckle. "It's always the quiet ones." he says, but Len doesn't know what he means.

He changes the subject. "So, uh, why are you here?"

Kaito chortles, "My mum works 'ere."

"Oh. Cool." But he doesn't really get how that's supposed to answer his question. Well… whatever.

The two of them stay silent until the year coordinator comes to take Len to his homeroom.

* * *

His homeroom is populated by the usual teenage stereotypes – panda-eyed girly-girls, douchebag boys and outcasts. As soon as he walks into the room with the coordinator, the whole room falls quiet and the students turn to ogle at him with their makeup-caked and bumfluff-covered faces.

Great. He'll be spending the next three terms with a bunch of circus freaks. God help him.

"Class," his apparent, hippy-looking homeroom teacher, Hiyama-sensei, claps his hands to call attention over the bickering of students after they had inspected Len for about three seconds. Once again, the class falls silent – well, almost silent – and students turn their heads to the teacher to listen to whatever he has to say.

"I'd like you all to meet Kagamine Len. He's a new student at VH and transferred here all the way from Kyoto. Please treat him with utmost respect, because he'll be studying with us for, hopefully, the rest of the school year, and possibly the year after that, too." That's if his Mum doesn't decide to move again.

Hiyama-sensei places a hand on Len's shoulder. "How about you say a few things about yourself? Your likes, dislikes?"

Len swallows uneasily and looks back at the ever-intimidating stares of his classmates. The second-last thing he likes to do is make public speeches about him. He hates talking about himself _in general_. He's a boring person. No one's going to care – obviously. "Uh… I like… music… and stuff."

"Do you have any dislikes, hobbies even?" Hiyama-sensei eggs him on – making Len feel slightly irked.

He almost says he dislikes people, but decides to leave that out. "I don't like, um… homework… and uh… I have no hobbies, really." A few classmates titter over his reply and Len mentally sighs in frustration, wishing that the teacher would dismiss him from this act of mortification already.

Hiyama-sensei seems to be satisfied… or nearly satisfied. "Please go and take a seat."

And so he does, in the very far corner of the classroom.

He's well aware that 90% of the girl's gazes follow him all the way to his seat, which vexes him a bit, but he chooses to ignore it… because, well, they'll get over it eventually. Girls are girls. He'll only be new, shiny eye-candy for about a week or two before the fuss dies down and he becomes invisible – or so he hopes, anyway.

At the end of homeroom, Len's approached by a group of girls who seem to be giggling and bustling about over something. The one with red hair strikes the first question. "Are you related to Rin or something?" she asks.

Len raises his eyebrow. "Rin? Who's Rin?"

The girls point to another girl, seated by the window at the front, hunched over her desk. She glances up momentarily out the window and he gets her portrait – clear, ivory skin, shoulder-length golden hair and deep azure eyes. Somewhere in his chest, his heart just about does a waltz.

He ignores it.

"No," he mumbles, looking back down at his desk in an attempt to hide the sudden blush breaking out across his face. "Never heard of her,"

"Aw, I see," the girl says, sounding unusually pleased. She and her friends then walk off, chattering elatedly.

Ugh, what _was _that? He must be out of his mind today. Seriously. He has _never _experienced a stupid, girly crush like this. God, he only saw her profile for freak's sake – not her panties or whatever.

That thought nearly made him want to rip his eyeballs out of his skull.

He decides to stay _far_, _far away_ from that Rin girl – whoever she is – for the rest of the day, or possibly the rest of the year, because he'd rather not go falling into an unrequited love. He doesn't need that. Not now. He can worry about that in college or whatever, when he's actually mature enough to handle a proper relationship.

After three painful periods of History and Literature, Len's granted with a half-an-hour lunchbreak, in which he doesn't find all-that-amazing. So far, he has all his classes with Rin – not that he's counting or anything – and this strange, popular girl called Hatsune Miku, who treats Rin as some kind of henchman… or henchwoman… thing.

As Len's pulling his bento from his backpack, he's approached by the familiar teal pigtails and golden bob, in which he pretends he doesn't notice. But pigtail-girl, aka Miku, taps him on the shoulder, much to his annoyance, to grab his attention.

He turns his head slowly and tries to avoid looking at Rin as much as possible. Instead, he doesn't need to, because the fact that Miku's practically _glowing_ is way too distracting anyhow. She beams widely and puts her hand out so fast she almost punches him in the stomach. Almost. But not quite.

Len takes a step back in defence, eyeing her warily.

"Hi, you're Len-kun, right? I'm Hatsune Miku, but you can just call me Miku." she gushes.

Len decides he doesn't like her. In fact, he'd rather see her get hit by a bus. Multiple times. But he keeps that to himself.

"Oh, right… um, hello." he mutters, taking her hand and shaking it awkwardly. Miku giggles – in which, her laugh reminds him of a fairy (an evil one) – and blushes.

"If you need anything, like help or whatever, then you should, like, come see me, okay?" she says.

Len nods very concisely and stays silent.

Miku giggles again. "Oh, yeah, do you have anyone to sit with at lunch? You can sit with me, if you… you know, want." She's twisting a lock of hair around her finger and batting her eyelashes flirtingly. Len almost has the urge to gag, but he doesn't.

"Uh, sorry, I have someone to sit with already." he lies bluntly, sticking with the idea of avoiding making any friends at all costs. "Thanks for the offer, though," he adds hesitantly, before turning sharply and walking off down the corridor before she can make any other attempts at conversation.

He notes that he should stay even further away from Miku, because she's just plain annoying.

* * *

Len had found a spot, particularly under the staircase, to hide for the rest of that lunchbreak. It wasn't the best place to sit, due to the dirt, dust and cobwebs, but no way in hell was he risking bumping into Miku again, because she'd probably talk his left ear off. When the bell signalled the end of that break, he rushed off to his next lesson – Mathematics – in which, he kind of likes, despite how lame that sounded.

He discovers that Rin, but not Miku (thankfully), and that Kaito-dude from this morning are in his class. Kaito gives him a half-wave and a lazy grin when he enters the classroom, before beckoning Len over to him and some other albino-looking boy whose head is currently buried in a novel.

Weird.

Len sidles over and takes the offered seat, sighing. Kaito pats him on the back and gestures to the book-boy, who looks up briefly. "Len, this is Piko. Piko, this is Len. Be nice to each other."

Piko… or whatever… stares at Len almost scrutinisingly for a few moments. "Nice to meet you," he articulates curtly, before looking back down at his novel.

Len mumbles something back and looks over at Rin, coincidentally (or not), who's having a conversation with some students. She laughs and it sounds nearly angelic, and Len just about passes out in his chair from the absolute beauty of her vocals.

Kaito begs to get his attention, by poking him repeatedly in the shoulder to shake him out of his slight daze. He turns and looks over at his… acquaintance, trying to contain himself from breaking out into a blush. "So… having a good day so far?"

Len shrugs and makes a sound that shows his opinion is neutral. Kaito's grin widens and he places his head on the palm of his hand, his eyes widening to about the size of freaking golf balls – if that's even humanly possible, and Len wouldn't be surprised if Kaito is an alien from the planet Noid or something.

"I heard… Miss Miku's got the hots for you."

If Len had been sipping a drink, he would've spat it out all over the person sitting directly in front of him. Instead, Len ends up making a raspberry sound and several heads turn.

Kaito apparently thinks this is hilarious. "Oh god, your face just said, 'Kill me now!'" he chuckles, clutching his stomach, "Bro, you make the funniest faces." Len just scowls, hunching further into his seat. Kaito wipes tears from his eyes and pats Len on the back comfortingly. "Ah, I feels for you, man. I feels." He slaps a hand over his left breast and fakes a sympathetic expression.

"Feels?" Len mutters.

"Yes, feels. Like fingering."

Kaito continues to laugh as Len turns scarlet and shrinks back even further into his chair, to the point where the compression of atoms would not even allow him to…

Just forget it. He failed Chemistry last term. Or Physics.

(Science was his sleeping time. Not that he has anything specifically against it.)

"Dude, I need a mirror, just to show you how red your face is." Kaito says and Len returns a glare of hatred and mortification. If looks could kill, Kaito would have been well dead by now. In fact, his existence would be null from this point.

To save him from further embarrassment, the teacher walks into the room and starts rambling on about parabolas, or something like that, despite him having learnt that in middle school (not that it matters, because he usually forgets these things after a month).

His next lesson is Art, in which both Miku and Kaito take. Rin doesn't. Not that he cares.

What he's really worrying about is facing Miku. Luckily, he has Kaito with him – but Kaito probably won't help. At all. He just seems like that kind of person to just sit back and laugh until he throws up. And Len really regrets not taking Languages. He can't even draw a stick figure for Christ's sake.

Len nearly dives for cover underneath the art table when Miku skips in, all happy-go-lucky, and sees him. She just about wets herself. Like, she goes, "Eep!" and does some funky dance move. In response to seeing that, the entire student population, but Len and Kaito, mutters, "So cute!"

Kaito's quietly snickering behind his hand as Miku springs over to Len and sits on the chair beside him. Is it just him, or did Miku shoot a dirty look over at Kaito? (In his opinion, Miku and Kaito actually seem like the ones to conflict.)

"Oh my gosh, we're in the same class, Len-kun!" she squeals, grasping his hand and looking up into his eyes all lovey-dovey, which makes Len feel _extremely _uncomfortable. He slips his hand away and laughs nervously.

"Yeah… how coincidental…" _Someone shoot her with a gun and put her out of her misery_, Len muses bluntly.

She giggles hysterically. "This is great! Maybe we could, like, get to know each other better!"

Len smiles thinly, but says nothing. He looks down at his hands and wishes a black hole would appear in the ground and swallow him up. Or he could just flipping teleport.

Either option is fine – just get him _out of here_ (or far away from Miku).

Throughout the whole art session, Miku tries to make sweet talk with him, or nag him, or brag about how amazing she is at everything… in which, she is, from what he's seen so far – especially when she showed off a portrait she sketched last week. He has to admit that, despite the urge to say terrible things about her, she's… awfully perfect. And he hates perfect people, because they make him feel insecure.

He makes a run for Science, for the first time in his life (well, he tries to, but he somehow gets lost and has to pull out his map for reference). Unfortunately, both Miku _and _Rin happen to be in the same class. And that Piko guy from earlier, but he just looked at Len like he was a stranger. Well… he _is _a stranger… but he has a feeling Piko has some secret hatred for him.

Whatever.

As Len makes his way to the back of the classroom, Miku yanks a chair out and pats it, inviting him to sit next to her. Oh god, he doesn't think he can survive another hour of Miku's life-story. Seriously, she needs a plug or a cork to her mouth.

But he stills sits next to her because he hates having to decline things. Sometimes he's too nice for his own good.

So most of the lesson, he tries to ignore the ongoing chatterbox beside him and understand the mash of symbols written across the board, while shooting looks casually past Miku, to Rin, who looks interested in the gibberish topic being spoken about.

_Damn these stupid crush-things – how is it even possible to get feelings for someone when you haven't even talked to them yet – let alone seen them for the first time, today? _Len thinks. Yeah, he may be inside the classroom, but his mind is at the other side of the universe.

For all he knows, Rin could be a murderer or a masochist. (Still, she looks too innocent to _be _like that… but anyway… he could be wrong – as he is, always.)

As everyone is packing up to leave the classroom, Miku 'accidentally' drops a pencil at Len's feet (emphasis on accidentally). "Oh," she giggles somewhat nervously, "could you fetch that for me, Len-kun?"

He can see Rin standing behind her, chewing her lip like she's piqued. Well, he doesn't blame her; Miku's backside is blocking her pathway.

To avoid argument, even though he knows Miku's doing this on purpose, Len sighs and bends over, picking up the He**o Ki**y mechanical pencil off the ground. He hands it to her and turns away to leave.

"So… Len-kun," Miku suddenly appears beside him again, bright and smiley – and it looks like she's forgotten Rin, because Rin is trying to catch up from behind. "Are you taking the train or walking?" Len feels slightly disappointed, because he hoped she'd stop persisting if he hurried off or whatever. Apparently not.

Len bites his bottom lip. "The train,"

Miku makes a disappointed sound. "Aw, I was hoping we could maybe walk together…"

Len would rather get hit by a truck then go for a walk with Miku. It would be too painful.

_Too _painful.

"What a pity," Len mutters, his tone sardonic. But Miku is too much of an airhead to pick up his sarcasm.

"I know, right? Maybe next time. I have to go now, so, bye-bye, Len-kun," Miku wiggles her fingers and disappears from his side, probably to go torture someone with more of her overwhelming ego.

When he looks over his shoulder to see whether Miku had actually gone, he catches Rin staring at him.

* * *

**D-DUN DUN DUUUUUN. okay, I'm sorry, that needed to be here.**

**oh. that made me think of something random. maybe the characters for this story should have themes or whatever. hahahahahah Pokemon theme songs.**

**anyway, I know this isn't really _humour _but who gives a cactus. punch me or flame me or whatever. I don't care. I know I'm not funny.  
(I just didn't want to put the genre as drama. because drama... it's just... well... DRAMA, okay? ergh)**

**this story came to mind when I watched the PV for honey & clover club (Rin's cover). oh gosh. was awesome. I suggest you watch it.  
RIN RIDING ON THE BACK OF LEN'S BICYCLE. SHOULD HAPPEN MORE OFTEN. just putting that out there, kiddies.**

**and I usually write in first person, but I wanted to try writing third person. I find humour easier to write with first person... BUT HERE I AM, JUMPING INTO THE DEEP WATER.**

**OH AND DID YOU HEAR?!1/1/1/1/1 the third instalment for Synchronocity (Synchronicity? oh god, spelling this word evades me. help, someone, help) IS BEING RELEASED ON NOV 19 DCJAHLHsjLFHDJSFDKLHFAJLAHDJ L ****yeah. just- Hitoshizuku-P and suzunosuke? /inserts amazing fluff here ermergerd. ERMERGERD.**

**god, I need to do more with my life.**

**/procrastinating**

**lychee if this will ever be completed. probably potato. :'3**


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